Cognitive Dissonance
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jsteele
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Site Admin Online
Why would you leave? We are stuck with the laws you do desperately wanted to protect. |
jsteele
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Site Admin Online
This is probably the best objective review of the criminal code revision. Read it and see what you think then: https://dcist.com/story/23/01/27/does-dc-criminal-code-overhaul-reduce-penalties-violent-offenses |
Anonymous
Those laws, sure. But it’s more so the progressive policies of the last few years (YRA, second look, no chasing atvs, no loss of license for thousands in tickets, etc) that combined don’t help. Plus the push to reduce the police force or its budget. Please not prosecuting teens. I mean we are talking in circles, Jeff. I agree some changes need to happen, but I err on the side of strict punishment rather than leniency. The problem is both sides of the political spectrum want to try all their methods out and not be hindered by the others sides’ policies. For example, progressives are so sure their methods work work. They think: “if we just keep studying the root causes of poverty, if we keep throwing money at this, if we spend millions more on violence interruptors, if we allow repeat offenders early release, if we just keep doing this stuff we will ultimately solve the violence crisis and in 20 years we will have been proven right.” Whereas a lot of more moderate or conservative people are just like: “lock em up, some people need to be away from society for everyone else’s good.” Having lived in DC my whole life, I am fed up with pouring tax dollars into progressive programs with questionable efficacy (violence interruptors, etc) rather than just clamping down. I get it. We’ve had a reckoning in the last few years, we have studied the disparate impact and who is getting locked up, but like what is the answer? Just increased leniency, tolerance for “certain misdemeanor crimes” and basically shrugging and letting it happen, so there are less arrests and jail sentences across the board? No dude. And the whole country is kind of seeing that that approach causes more crime. Chicago is an example of people being fed up with constant shootings all the time. The whole thing just sucks. The history of how this country came to have so many oppressed and desperate people is really soul crushing. |
Anonymous
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For some balance:
Suffice it to say, though, that I hope rational people can agree that Mayor Muriel Bowser, Police Chief Robert Contee, and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves are not right-wing media personalities or dilettante pundits. Running through advocates’ side of the argument over this, it seems to me that they can’t decide whether they’re dispelling the myth that this is a soft-on-crime, anti-carceral measure or motivated by the fact that that’s exactly what it is. (…) Statehood for the District of Columbia is mostly discussed in the national press in terms of its impact on Senate math. The real consequences of non-statehood for people who live in the District, though, include the fact that D.C. does not have state courts. Instead, all the functions that would normally be performed by a state court system are instead performed by special Article II federal courts with local jurisdiction. That’s also why we have a U.S. Attorney performing most of the functions that would normally be performed by a district attorney. But this all means that we rely on Congress to provide the resources the D.C. court system needs to function. On some level, that’s a gift to the city — we are getting services that we don’t pay for in exchange for paying taxes without representation. But on another level, it’s a huge problem. At the end of the day, courts are just not a huge line item in any state’s budget. And in exchange for saving some money, we lack a major piece of self-government. Note that even under the current criminal code, lack of judicial resources is a huge problem for D.C. (…) And my suspicion is that we’re moving forward with this plan because: *** the key people driving it don’t actually think it’s a big problem to de facto decriminalize a lot of misconduct.*** (https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-im-worried-about-dcs-criminal) |
Anonymous
Interesting article - but it exposes a whole host of problems in our system. They cite a carjacking study by the Sentencing Commission - https://scdc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/scdc/release_content/attachments/Carjacking_Fast_Facts.pdf That report says 97% of carjacking counts received a prison sentence. Meanwhile the MPD dashboard shows there were 660 carjackings during the Sentencing Commission's study period. https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/carjacking 97% received sentences. But that's of the 34 carjackers who actually got to the point of being prosecuted for sentencing. What about the other 630 carjackings that happened? And, it's only gotten worse since December 2020. How will the bill improve the number of prosecutions leading to sentencing? And what about transparency? There is very little transparency from AUSA, have heard that they don't respond to FOIA requests on prosecution stats. Council should address transparency with their crime bill, given the huge disconnect between DC crime stats and sentencing stats which reveals that apparently only a small fraction of crimes and arrests result in anything. And, allowing for a "racial discrimination" rationale for dropping mandatory minimums for minor offenses and first offenders, but it does not excuse away violent offenses and repeat offenses. Allowing violence and repeat offenses plays into the soft racism of low expectations. I still think we need mandatory minimums for violent and repeat offenders - and the low side of national average on minimums per the article is 5 years. Council should put mandatory minimum language in for violent and repeat offenders. |
Anonymous
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If I could be bothered to run for office, my platform would be:
1. Park the statehood because it hasn’t happened even when Dems had a full majority; park it until comprehensive studies on pros and cons and scenarios of what would happen have been done, Dems have the full majority again; then referendum first 2. Declare DC a tax haven (no representation other than what we already have, no taxation), like many cities in the world (e.g., Zug Switzerland). The city will grow rich and attractive quickly 3. Introduce Universal basic income for all DC-born citizens, means-tested 4. Build in and mandate Affordable quality housing throughout the city 5. Monitor and adjust Since there would be no more tax, #1 statehood may happen a lot faster By the time statehood rolls around, I’d have probably sold my skyrocketed properties and move to the actual Switzerland |
Anonymous
Re: criminal justice reform: George Floyd's murder took place when violent crime was relatively low. Protecting against it wasn't really on most people's radar, save for very low income communities of color. And honestly, they don't have a voice like many others do. And justice reform feels good and hypothetically makes sense. No reasonable person wants to unduly punish people. Most people want the punishment to fit the crime. What progressive reformers got wrong, however, is that you can't upend the system without downstream effects, most of which will disproportionately impact those most vulnerable communities. So when you provide all the supports to the people committing crimes, you completely overlook the victims. And people take advantage of that. Add to it the huge influx of even more guns into our society, both from increased manufacturer, fear purchases, ghost guns, and the erosion of gun safety laws, and you have a deadly mix. Guess who suffers the resulting increased violence? Lower income communities of color. Good criminal justice reform would have been more measured, based on evidence, and would have worked really hard to avoid unintended consequences as much as possible. It did not. It was governance by twitter. Whatever sounded catchy got the support. And here we are. Extreme right wing politicians/activists do this too. We just happen to live in a very progressive region. |
Anonymous
My back of the envelope calcs show that out of all DC carjackings, MPD is showing around 21% as "cleared" which is unclear to me what it means - does it mean there was an arrest, or does it mean "hey we found the car, call it a day?" And, it shows 5% resulting in convictions of some sort. TL;DR for carjackings in DC, there's a 21% chance of police actually doing something, and a 5% chance of it actually resulting in conviction. Does anyone think those numbers are acceptable? |
jsteele
Site Admin Online
Site Admin Online
I don't think those numbers are acceptable. I also don't think that fixating on whether the minimum sentence is 4 or 7 years makes a lot of sense given how few perpetrators make it that far. |
Anonymous
Bingo |
Anonymous
well then why does the code rewrite fixate on changing the maximum? answer: to reduce actual sentences. which yes, will result in more carjacking. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2022/20220621_Recidivsm-SentLength.pdf |
jsteele
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Site Admin Online
The maximum in the revision is 24 years. Judges have rarely given that much so it is really immaterial. What do you think is the proper maximum? |
Anonymous
I think it does matter. Given how many criminal acts already do slip through the cracks, not having a mandatory minimum just makes for yet another crack for things to slip through. |
Anonymous
I'm vaguely undecided on the code bill, not that it matters now, but the idea behind this bothers me. The proponents of the bill were always proclaiming that judges don't give maximum penalties now, so changing the maximum and minimums would have no effect. But that's very unclear to me. If you change the max and min, judges could easily change their sentencing, even if their old sentencing is within the new range. It's really a change in equilibrium, not a simple change. |
Anonymous
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I don’t think there should be a max over 20 years for any crime. If you are a serial murderer that’s a mental institution and can be for life or until no danger. So I’m very ok w reduced maximums.
I am horrified by the jury trials for misdemeanors when the legislators know these would never happen. That means legalizing all misdemeanors. Noise, fights, non-felony crimes and robberies, any number of antisocial behaviors. DC would be bedlam. It’s a terrible legislation without serious corrections, that shows just how unserious and disinterested in the DC population’s well-being this council is — they’re in it for their own careers. End of story. It’s a firm no. |